If the case that The Huffington Post were making to its bloggers were a little more frank, along the lines of the following:
"Sure, we’d love for you to post here. And there’s the chance that your post could do very well. But odds are that only a few hundred people will see it, and we’ll be lucky to sell enough ads on it to afford a slice of pizza."
…there might be fewer complaints that it doesn’t pay its bloggers.